Richard & Cherry Kearton. A Photographic Legacy

Richard Kearton (1862–1928) and his brother Cherry Kearton (1871–1940) were British nature photographers active from 1892. Lauded by eminent naturalists Peter Scott and David Attenborough, they were labelled “the fathers of natural history photography” by Eric Hosking. This paper examines their contribution to the development of nature photography. The Keartons promoted the photograph as the truest medium for representing birds. They were among the first to exploit two technological innovations: the dry collodion plate, enabling field photography, and the half-tone printing plate, enabling photographic illustrations in their many books (a principal source for this paper). They took the first ever photograph of a bird’s nest with eggs, with two consequences: the first attempt to photographically catalogue a natural group, British birds’ nests and eggs; and the first British nature book illustrated entirely with photographs. Their concept of the portable mimetic photographic hide foresaw the evolution of a practical field hide. Their popularity, as authors and lecturers, raised awareness of their credo of hunting nature with the camera, not the gun.